With new trends enlivening the restaurant scene, your menu offerings must keep pace. When packaged appropriately, the following three menu items are engines for higher sales. With each of these best sellers, we’ve included tips for how your restaurant can present menu and dinner service options that take advantage of strong customer demand.
Artisan Cocktails
High-quality alcoholic beverages for adult customers are proven to boost profitability. Restaurants that incorporate seasonal ingredients or signature flare in their creative cocktails generate a considerable percentage of sales from these pricy alcoholic drinks.
Tip: Show off. Presented with a little something extra, craft cocktails inspire customers to spend a little extra, too. From fancy garnishes like whipped cream and snow crab legs to innovative containers like oversized stemware or mason jars, there’s no limit to the pizzazz you can throw in.
Appetizers and Sides
Just two years ago, studies showed a 1.5% decline in entrée sales at U.S. table service restaurants. In a struggling economy, customers economized by filling up on appetizers instead. Heftier choices like chicken wings, oysters, ribs, and empanadas saw a 2.8% growth in sales.
Today, appetizers and sides continue to be a money-maker for restaurants. With the farm-to-table trend only growing in momentum, customers focused on healthy choices sway toward small-portion meals. In addition, Nation’s Restaurant News reports that full-service restaurants can boost sales by offering a thoughtful selection of tempting starters the whole party can share.
Tip: Wow them with comfort foods. Too many strange ingredients can lose a customer’s attention. Select the familiar. Dressed with innovative flavors, your basic vegetable and potato dishes transform into premium sides that attract guests to pool their resources for a bigger, more fabulous spread.
Soups and Salads
Within the appetizers and sides category, soups and salads are big winners. Fast Casual reports soup is on the rebound with U.S. customers, with soup dollar volume sales growing the most at eating and drinking establishments as opposed to non-commercial, retail, or lodging and recreation channels.
Another essential component of every menu is salads. The number of customers likely to purchase a salad when they are away from home has grown significantly. Perceived as healthy food choices, soups and salads are prized for their lightness and variety.
Tip: Customers are more likely to purchase soups and salads together, or with a sandwich. Make sure your menu includes the combo option. Utilize your menu space to tout nutritional information for your health-conscious clientele. Finally, keep customers coming back by living up to the variety that soups and salad options promise. QSR Magazine recommends keeping at least three varieties of soup a day.
How well are your appetizers and sides selling? Could your beer and wine selection use a little tweaking? With Revel’s intelligent reporting feature, you can easily determine which menu items are most profitable over time and in relation to your costs. Access Intelligent Reporting sales reports via a web browser, mobile device, or email alert to monitor profitability at a glance.
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